Protecting against predators
They’re our frontline biodiversity protectors - a landscape scale conservation project working across the Lake Wānaka and Whakatipu catchments, and Southern Lakes Sanctuary (SLS) won’t stop until the job is done.
“Our focus is to protect native species through biodiversity monitoring, enabling targeted predator control work,” ecologist Katrina Black says.
Next on its radar is the precious Bob’s Cove beech forest, home to the kākāriki (yellow crowned parakeet), kererū (wood pigeon), tūī and fantail. In addition to bird monitoring programmes, SLS hopes to monitor native bat and lizard populations in the area and work further on their protection as well.
“Bob’s Cove is the closest intact native forest to Queenstown and a biodiversity hotspot. If we don’t do this work now, we will no longer have these native species for future generations to enjoy,” Black says.
It was New Zealand’s precious wildlife and birds that attracted her back to her hometown of Queenstown after extensive wildlife conservation work in Canada. “I wanted my girls and grandchildren to have that same childhood that we had, walking in the native bush around here.”
SLS has been working extensively throughout the district on predator control and monitoring programmes to protect precious native wildlife and Black says if it’s not done now these species may not be here for future generations to enjoy.
“We work closely with six key partner organisations, predominantly predator control groups like Whakatipu Wildlife Trust, to control introduced predators and pests like possums, stoats, rats and feral cats,” she says.
“We have a herpetologist (lizard specialist), Sam Purdie, who has just finished his Masters, and he will also work with us monitoring lizard populations in the Cove.”
The project is dependent on attracting sufficient funding and SLS is one of five finalists in Impact100’s latest grant funding round, to be announced at a gala dinner this Wednesday, 25 October. A total $208,000 will be handed out – two major $100,000 grants.
“This funding would enable us to protect this incredible beech forest by installing high tech, self-resetting and self-baiting AT220 predator traps, greatly speeding up the capture rate,” Black says.
“We put 25 of these into the Bush Creek Reserve and in the first 11 months we removed over 1000 predators. They’re way more efficient and a far better use of resources.”
SLS has already begun a small-scale pilot trial using these specialist traps on the Bob’s Cove peninsula. Bob’s Cove Community Group also uses box traps to help protect native species and this project will support their work and expand into new areas.
The aim is to install about 50 AT220 traps at Bob’s Cove, each costing around $700. They come with an A.I camera and node, all electronically linked so staff can monitor trap activity and bait levels from back at the office. The money would also go towards live capture of feral cats by specially trained staff. The AT220 traps and necessary equipment alone will likely cost $40,000 to $50,000 with the rest of the money paying staff to do intensive monitoring. “We will bring in our technical staff, ecologists, biodiversity co-ordinators, bird specialists and herpetologist,” Black says.
“Our issue is that this work we’re doing needed to be done yesterday and the day before. It’s incredibly urgent as we are in a biodiversity crisis all around the world. Ours is the last generation that has an opportunity to make a genuine effort and a difference,” she says. “If we don’t save these species then they’re lost forever.”
Black says 25 million native birds are killed each year by introduced predators. “We just need to preserve Bob’s Cove while they’re still there.”
